


Baz's violin

by roslindie



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5572927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roslindie/pseuds/roslindie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon has a list. It's a bit spiteful, and a tad dreamy. Baz can never, ever, read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baz's violin

When I come home in the evenings, he’s playing Bach. Like he’s always playing.

  
It’s the songs that bring me into my real home. The one that’s not this building, the one that’s not determined by what photographs we have up on the shelves. The home where it’s just me, and Baz, and the soundtrack of our life. Our life together, and our home together.

  
I’ll put down my bags, and take off my coat, and sit on our couch. He won’t look at me, his eyes don’t open when he’s playing like this, but I can feel him say hi. With that one high note, with the long stroke of his arm, he’s welcoming me home. I know this sounds bizarre, but it’s true.

  
It’s then that I take out my list, the one I started back in first year. The one I pretended didn’t happen. Not the one about the things I miss about Watford, or the one about the things I had to do.

  
The one about Baz’s violin. It used to be a spiteful, hateful, list, but now…

  
**Things I want Baz to do with his violin:**

  
**_No. 1- I want him to stop playing._ **

  
At first, when Baz brought out that violin from its posh velvet lined case, and started playing the strings with his bow, all I wanted him to do was stop.

  
We had just started sharing a room, and that whole week we had been avoiding each other as much as possible. _We knew who we were, and what we were eventually going to have to do to each other._ But he just kept playing and I just couldn’t stop listening. It grew to the point where I was no longer trying to avoid him, but trying to be around him when he was in our room.

  
I wanted him to stop playing, but I couldn’t stop listening.

  
I would get those melodies he played stuck in my head for ages, and I could still remember what the song sounded like even if he’d played it years ago. I heard the melodies everywhere. I even started to hear them in my dreams.

  
My first year self couldn’t deal with it. Why couldn’t he and his violin just shut up? Why wouldn’t Baz just go away?

  
Whenever they became stuck in my mind, all I could think of was Baz. How he looked, playing those melodies. How he looked, his fingers nimble on the strings. _How he looked…_

  
Even then, even in first year, I knew that how he looked when he played was something special. Something that was so, so special. Something that I wanted to be mine, and no one else’s. I think the thoughts scared me so much, I just wanted him to stop playing.

  
Why did his violin have to get constantly stuck in my mind? Why couldn’t Baz just be content with occupying most of my thoughts and not have to bring his stupid, beautiful music into this?

  
I was so clueless. I was so, so clueless.

  
I think I created this list because I didn’t know any other way to deal with my feelings. I could tell Baz to stop playing, I could scream and curse at him to put the damn thing away, but I could never insult his music. I knew that his music was special to me. What I didn’t know was that _Baz_ was special to me.

  
_**No. 2- I want him to stop playing depressing songs.** _

  
This was the bit I added on in fifth year, when I was trailing Baz night and day. Down to the catacombs he went, with that long, black case and freshly washed hands. Baz always washes his hands before he plays.

  
I followed him, and I sat. We sat in the darkness, with the rats and the spiders and the damp musk smell, with Baz’s melodies.

  
That was about the only rest I got that year, sitting in those catacombs, feeling fully at ease because I knew where Baz was, and he was just playing his violin. He wasn’t plotting, he wasn’t scheming. He was just playing. Some part of me loved his playing, the part of me that has always been honest with myself. The part of me that has always known where I stand, with Baz.

  
_Beside him._

  
I will forever stand beside Baz.

  
That part of me was bigger in fifth year, bigger than it had ever been.

  
But the part of me that hated his violin, was even bigger still.

  
I hated sitting there in those catacombs, just Baz and I and the songs.

  
All of them sad. All of them depressing.

  
They made me think, and in fifth year, thinking on things too long had become my enemy. My own thoughts had started to hurt me more than my real nemesis, thoughts of killing Baz, and what the Mage was planning for me, and how my life would never be what _I_ wanted.

  
Most of all, I hated that his songs made me _feel_ something. He drew out those extremely, long, wailing notes, his face matching all the despair that the song had, and I would feel things.

  
He made me feel everything, all at once.

  
_Love and hate, envy, sadness, joy, sympathy…_ I could feel his every emotion through the melodies and it made me pity him. He made me pity my enemy, the one who I was supposed to show no mercy.

  
The tears would trace trails down his pale cheeks, but he would keep playing. He would never stop, the spiral and the crescendo of notes didn’t stop pulling themselves from his hands until the piece was over.

  
As much as I do love to watch Baz play, in fifth year, it was _awful_. His eyes were clenched shut, _always_ shut, and his movements were not gentle. His arms rose and descended, sawing away with the horsehair like he was trying to rip something out of the violin. A little bit like he was trying to tear something _out of himself_.

  
By the time the song was over, he would be panting heavily, his fingers absolutely red from pressing down so desperately at the strings. He would get that look on his face, that maybe now he’d gotten that song out, maybe things would be better. Maybe his sadness would ease a _bit._

  
He had to stop playing those depressing songs.

  
In fifth year, I put this on the list because I hated that his sad songs could make me feel things, but now I think it’s because I truly didn’t want Baz to be depressed. I couldn’t stand that he was down in the catacombs, tearing awful songs out of his violin, and not plotting. Not being the Baz _I knew._

  
**_No. 3- I want him to stop playing Christmas songs._ **

  
There is no one I know who loves Christmas carols as much as Baz does. He tries to hide it, and denies it fiercely every time I bring it up. But there are things you just know.

  
I can see how he brightens every time ‘Let It Snow’ comes through the playlist, because I know it’s his favorite. Our neighborhood was having a Christmas Eve caroling party one year, and it was loads of fun, but I could tell something was slightly off with Baz. Penny and I were singing our hearts out, very off key I might add, but Baz wouldn’t. I don’t think he likes his voice, how deep and smooth it is. It’s extremely hard to believe since it’s one of my favorite things about him. He always sounds posh and polite, even when he’s not, even when he’s calling me sweetheart. There are things about people you don’t realize you loved until one day, it just hits you. That night, Baz wouldn’t sing, and I missed his voice.

  
When he was in bed, sleeping curled next to me like he always is, I snuck out to the store. He’s not as observant as he thinks, because he didn’t notice I was gone. I bought him a book of holiday songs for the violin, and threw it under the tree for the next morning.

  
I still can’t decide whether this was the best or the worst decision of my life.

  
All Christmas day, and for the next month, all he would play were Christmas songs.

  
I swear if I have to hear jingle bells _one more time…_

  
It was really annoying but it sort of wasn’t, at the same time?

  
I’ve started to suspect that the reason Baz likes Christmas songs is because of our anniversary. That was when we kissed, when I finally realized what was staring me straight in the face. That Baz is not. And I might not be either.

  
_Straight, I mean._

  
Baz loves me, and I love him, and we kissed that early Christmas eve.

  
Christmas is _us._

  
Now when I say that I want him to stop playing the awful Christmas songs, I’m only being partially serious. I love that he’s always thinking of Christmas. I love that he’s always _thinking of us._

  
_**No. 4- I want him to stop trying to show me Lindsay Stirling videos.** _

  
I haven’t got him to admit it yet, but Baz is obsessed. He’ll steal my laptop and hide under the covers of our bed, just so I can’t find him. But that’s only half the time.

  
The other half is filled with him trying to force me to watch the videos with him. Don’t get me wrong, I love Lindsay Stirling as much as the next person, but _every day?_ I tend to zone out to the music, just focusing on Baz’s face instead. This is one of the rare moments when I can observe him without him catching me.

  
So I guess that’s a plus?

  
It’s also beautiful to watch Baz listen to music. His expression gets all soft and he sways a little bit when he forgets that I’m watching. He doesn’t even turn to see if I’m paying attention, because he’s so far away in the melody. It’s like he’s caught in the music like it’s a current, almost like it’s _magic._

  
It’s magic when he plays her songs with his own hands, too.

  
In some ways, I like it when he plays Lindsay Stirling songs better than when he plays classical, because I can see that a little part of him enjoys it more. He doesn’t have to worry about making mistakes, or being orderly with his bowing, he just _goes_. Sometimes he even dances a bit, always when he doesn’t think I’m there.

  
But it’s something _special._ It’s how I know that he’s on the right track, that no matter what his family thinks of us, no matter what anyone thinks of us, the war is over, and Baz is healing. We _both_ are.

  
**_No. 5- I want to hear him play nothing but pizzicato._ **

  
I didn’t used to think that this was an actual musical term but, when Baz plays without his bow…

  
Pizzicato is short, and tight, and it bounces off your ears like tiny bursts of melody. It’s harder to predict what note comes next than when Baz plays concertos, because the notes aren’t _really_ connected.

  
Baz’s pizzicatos are like little sparks being sent up into the air, like the little kisses he presses to my forehead, my nose, my moles. They’re happy, and brief, and springy, and they make me feel like Baz is teasing me gently, or playing with a bit of my hair.

  
Pizzicato is our Sunday mornings. Coffee, and kisses, and short, little, melodies.

  
**_No. 6- I want to go to one of his orchestra concerts._ **

  
I want to see Baz on stage.

  
I want to see him dressed up in a sharp, black suit, with his hair kept back.

  
I want to see him sit straight in that chair, adjust his music stand, raise his violin…

  
I want to see him play up there, _where he belongs._ I want the world to see him play.

  
Most of all, I want it to make Baz happy.

  
I want to have him come home from rehearsal with tired eyes and sore fingers, but still be smiling. We’ll sit on the couch, Baz in my lap, while he tells me about every detail of his day. That look he’ll get when he tells me about how good it feels to play with the orchestra, how it makes him feel a part of something.

  
And I’ll be able to tell how proud he is of them.

  
He should be proud of his orchestra, he should be incredibly proud of _himself_.

  
At the concert, when they’re done their last piece and they raise from their seats, instruments in hand, I want to see him look for me in the audience.

  
And I want to see him _find me._

  
Does he know that I’ll always be here supporting him?

  
To the end of time, I’ll always be here as his audience, theater or at home.

  
There will be so much applause, and it will make him blush. They will all stream out from the preparation room, looking for their families and friends. Baz will walk out with them, in that glorious black suit, and he’ll see me. Sometimes he’ll see me and Penny. Maybe one day, _one day soon,_ he’ll see his parents and his siblings. But for now, it’s just us.

  
I’ll see that fire in his eyes when they catch on mine, on the flowers I’m holding. We’ll kiss under the bright hall lights, to the chatter of performers and concert-goers, and in that one kiss, I know that Baz will know how I felt about the music. I barely need to say it out loud anymore, because he tells me he sees it in my face.

  
Baz _knows._ He’s _always_ known and he _always_ knows.

  
**_No. 7- I want to go to a concert with him._ **

  
I want to see him sit with me in those red velvet chairs, at my side, not far away, on that stage.

  
I want him to talk excitedly to me before the performance starts, I want him to whisper in my ear as the orchestra walks on.

  
I want to be the one to get him a drink at intermission, the one to hold his hand over the arm rest.

  
Most of all, I want to be able to watch his face, see it full of awe. He’ll close his eyes and give into the music, but I’ll stay watching him, entranced by how he lets it take him away. He’ll straighten up when the notes grow higher and stoop with the decrescendos, almost like it’s a small dance he has to complete.

  
Baz has to feel the music in every part of him, let it course through him like electricity, like fire.

  
He nods his head at the nuances, and shakes it at parts, but he never lets go of my hand. I don’t let go either.

  
When the concert is over, I can see that extra light in his gray eyes, which are not slate colored anymore, but pure silver.

  
I can tell how much he wants to be able to play like that, to be the concert master. I know he could, I know he _will_ one day. But I tell him anyways that even if he doesn’t, he will always be my concert master.

  
His music makes my heart lurch, no matter what he’s playing, no matter where he’s sitting- on a world stage, or on our couch, and it will always mean _everything_ to me. I will never stop listening to it.

  
Baz has to know this. He probably knows it already, but I tell him anyways because that’s what you do to the people you’re in love with. You tell them things they already know, no matter how many times they’ve already heard them.

  
_You’re perfect._

  
_Don’t worry._

  
I _love_ you.

  
**_No. 8- I want to have a go._ **

  
I still can’t figure out if Baz would ever let me do this. If he did accept, it would probably just be to mock my failure.

  
He’d also probably make me wash my hands several times, then he’d show me the right posture before I even got anywhere near the violin.

  
I can just imagine the way he’d put his arms atop mine, his chest pressed against my back, and gently lower the delicate instrument into my grip. I’d be _so nervous._ What if I dropped it?

  
But Baz would be there, and he’d position my fingers around the bow (it’s actually very complicated and uncomfortable) and help me place it to the strings. I’m sure it would be terribly squeaky and gross sounding, but I’m sure I’d keep going until Baz would curse at me to stop. We’d both be laughing and I know he’d try to teach me again, but I know I wouldn’t like playing anyways. Eventually I’d just hand it back, and watch him go at another piece. I’m fine with this, watching Baz while he plays.

  
‘You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate music.’ I’ll say, and he’ll snort.

  
He knows I’m only in this to secretly watch him. Watch his hair.

  
_Aleister Crowley, Baz’s hair…_

  
**_No. 9- I want to hear him play a song he’s composed._ **

  
I like hearing Baz mess around on the violin, mixing up familiar tunes and melodies, making up ones that I haven’t heard before.

  
He’ll put a string of notes together and he’ll keep repeating them until he’s found where they go, where they fit with the next melody, and the next. What I like most about the music that Baz makes up himself, is that I can always tell _what_ he’s playing.

  
I might not be able to tell a Beethoven from a Paganini, or a Mozart from a Kreisler, but I can tell when Baz is playing about the first time we met.

  
His soft tremolo for when the crucible cast us together, when he tried to resist shaking my hand. Or the song for when we fought the Chimera, how scared we both were, the crashes drawn out on his strings showing how I went off, how everything was obliterated. In his music I can hear how lonely he was all those summer nights, how he couldn’t sleep without me. In one sweep of his arm and a press of his pinky finger, I can tell the precise moment Penny and I were taken by the humdrum, and what he felt in those few seconds I was gone. It nearly rips a hole in my chest when I hear it.

  
Baz barely talks about our years at Watford any more, at least not to tell me what he was doing or what he was feeling all those years ago, but I don’t force him. His music is enough to tell me how he felt, hiding himself beneath insulting and taunting me. How he sometimes can’t forgive himself.

  
I forgive him. I’ll _always_ forgive him.

  
My favorite song he plays, is of that night, the one that changed everything. Kissing him, everything starting to make sense… He plays it as a despairing melody of the vampire who wanted to die, but slowly the crescendo rises up and the melody takes a hold, the one that sings about how _right_ that kiss felt.

  
How right Baz’s lips will always feel on mine.

  
**_No. 10- I want to hear him play our song._ **

  
We have a song, me and Baz. But it’s not one that you’d recognize if you heard. It’s not a song that anyone has heard but us.

  
The first few chords where our hands met, encircled by our few friends and family.

  
I want to hear him play that song of how his arms went around my neck and my hands to his waist, how Penny was crying. How we were _both_ crying.

  
I want to hear him play how we danced, slowly but surely, to that cheesy wedding music, and how we didn’t need that wedding music, because the music of each other breathing was enough for me. How we stayed there, swaying in the center, for longer than we should have, until everyone had stopped watching.

  
I want Baz to play that song. Our wedding song, _our song._

  
Not the one that everyone heard, not the one was playing over the speakers, but the one that _only we could hear._

  
**_No. 11- I want him to play me like a violin._ **

  
There is always a part of me that wants Baz. A part of me that needs him, like I need _life itself_.

  
I want him to take me into his arms, pushing and pulling at me with those nimble, calloused fingers. I want to feel that concentrated mouth on mine, feel his hands tear into my hair. My moans and curses are the music, and I am the instrument.

  
_I am Baz’s._

  
He’ll make me arch my back, make my nerves sing with pleasure, his neck pressed into my shoulder as he kisses a melody along my collarbone. He’ll make me crescendo and tilt my head back, hot and panting and loud.

  
All I need are Baz’s hands, the press of his fingers, the sway of his body, the touch of his neck and his cheek.

  
**_No. 12- I want to hear him play our children to sleep._ **

  
I know that Baz can play beautiful lullabies.

  
The simple ones that you learn as a kid (or so I’ve been told), and the ones more specifically violin, like Brahms. That’s the one I’ve grown to love the most. Baz likes to play it when I’m sick, to make me rest easier and feel that he’s there with me, even if my eyes are closed and I can’t see him.

  
I absolutely refuse to let Baz sleep beside me when I’m sick. It just seems unreasonable, even though he protests against it endlessly.

  
I’ve always thought that Brahms’s lullaby would be the song that Baz would play when the baby was crying. He would bring the violin to his pale neck, and with the sweep of his arm, everything would suddenly _be okay_. I can imagine us sitting in the baby’s room, me in the rocking chair and Baz playing softly in the background.

  
_How gentle he would be._

  
His eyes wouldn’t be closed when he plays, they would be looking over at the small child in my arms, and his expression would make my chest hurt.

  
There are no words to the Brahms’s lullaby, and there doesn’t have to be. Not everyone can understand every language, not everyone can understand words, but our baby would be able to understand music.

  
Baz’s music, telling them that it was time to sleep, and that they shouldn’t be afraid.

  
Baz will be such a great father. I know that he will make our baby feel as special, and loved, and chosen as he makes _me_ feel.

  
The thought always makes my heart lurch.

  
**_No. 13- I want him to play my last song._ **

  
This is my last thing on the list, and it’s my last wish.

  
When the day comes that I die, I don’t want Baz to have to say anything.

  
I don’t want him to have to think he has to make up some grand speech, or dress up in a fancy suit, or even plan me a proper funeral.

  
_I’m not that person, and that’s not what Baz deserves._

  
It’s _never_ been what he deserves, putting up that terrible wall around him, making it seem like he was okay, when he _wasn’t._

  
All I want, is for Baz to play me one last song.

  
It doesn’t have to be loud, and it doesn’t have to sound good.

  
It will be a song about the messed up chosen boy with the bronze curls, and the dark haired vampire who was supposed to be his enemy.

  
How they hated each other but they didn’t, how they tried to kill each other for other people’s motives, how they loved each other and it was simple.

  
It will be the song about the Chimera and the numpties, Mummer’s house and the catacombs, the magic they shared, and how they almost died, but somehow they didn’t.

  
How, even though I’m gone, I’ll never _truly_ be gone.

  
_I can’t leave Baz._

  
Who knows what kind of trouble he will get up to when I’m away?

  
It will be sad, and terrible, and horrible, and the kind of pain that no one deserves.

  
But I’ll still need him to play me a goodbye, or a goodnight, because we don’t know when we’ll see each other again.

  
We _will_ see each other again. If there’s one thing I know, one thing I want more than anything else, it’s that.

No matter if he’s immortal, or a thousand worlds away,  
we _will_ be together.

  
And Baz will still be playing his violin.

  
And I will still be watching him, from _wherever_ I happen to be


End file.
